I'm somewhat new to this forum and I'm getting ready to put together my first BOB. I'd appreciate some input on which color is most versatile. Thanks!

I'd go with black. Low observable color but doesn't scream tacticool.

OD green or "forest" green

Black does not exist in a natural environment, but a green will fade into the woods and so forth quite well.

+100,000.  You can be camouflaged in the woods and the sheeple.

This.  I will shortly be replacing my OD green ALICE pack with either Forest Green or a dark blue.  Keep in mind that if you are on the move that you are much more subject to an ambush; the more you look "prepared" the more your ambusher will be worried that you are armed.  I am going to go for the "yuppie hiker" look.

The bag in my car is dark blue.  Blue blends in well with the night, but also looks perfectly normal in an every day capacity.  The make and style of the bag also make a difference.  A MOLLE three day assault pack will stand out a bit no matter what color it is.  The little GHB in my car is a Timbuk2 messenger bag, and EVERYONE in Austin owns one.

I have a dark green kelty. I still have my Camelbak BFM in ACU but it screams look look at me I have a military pack.

Im a fan of khaki/coyote. blends well in all envirnments.

Depends on your AO - usually dark, natural colors.

Years ago someone here took a picture of several packs in the brush at a variety of ranges. It was an awesome series, and black performed much better than everyone tells you it will - whereas coyote didn't.

I'd go with the dark natural colors,, earth brown, green. nothing cammo, or black.

The only problem that everyone has with black is "it shows up really well, while using nightvision".......  OOOOOOoooooooooooo!!  Big fricken deal!  As long as you "know" how to use camoflauge it shouldn't be a problem at all.

All this crap about "black not being in nature"...  What a bunch of BS!!  Ever looked at a cave or hole or shadow?  Black!  

As long as ALL your gear is not black and you pattern the big stuff with krylon, then you won't loook like a big black blob walking through the woods.  BTW, don't wear black fatigues.

Pathfinder

All great advice but here's the deal.  What is the environment you will carrying this in?  Are you going to be transporting to and from your office, or is it going to sit in the trunk of your car?  I have two BOBs.  One that sits in my truck, and the other is in my office.  My truck bag is Coyote and my office bag is black.  I don't want to be walking around work with a tactical bag.  The black one "blends" in and is assumed to be a laptop bag.  Make sure the color you pick will fit your particular surroundings.

Green.

This.

for all the 'anti-camo' comments. Aimless had a great rant on this ( I told him I was going to copy it. )
quote:
I think some of the 'OHMIGOD CAMO" stuff is mostly stuff guys on the gunboards keep telling each other until they convince themselves it's true. I have used multi cam packs with camo for years. I have carried them in Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, New York (including all over Manhatten) and no one has paid any attention. One police officer asked about it once on a traffic stop, but he seemed to be figuring out if he would let me off the hook on the ticket if I was in the military and wasn't terribly interested beyond that. I have seen tons of people with camo packs in the woods, particularly in the south.


If there is some big calamity the last thing I would be worried about is the fantasy that thousands of police officers and National Guardsmen are going to be dropped into an area with enough time on their hands to start trying to chase around every guy with a camo pack. Sorry but usually when things go south there just aren't that many cops around, the guard hasn't arrived yet and there is no secret posse of federal ninjas whose job it is to chase guys with multicam through the woods. If there is that much manpower on the ground in some tinfoil "they are carting us off to fema camps" scenario they are going to find your pistol, your 20 pistol magazines, your 7 knives etc and going to have just as many questions for you.
end quote.

Your milage and tinfoil hat tightness may vary

I could not agree more!

The whole point of not wearing camouflage or military style gear in SHTF when dealing with the general public is the same thing; it will get people's attention.  You may get away with an old ruck, but the more you look prepared the more the authorities will see you as a threat (because you know we are all crazy and anti-government) and people will see you as a source of supplies/knowledge/protection.  Looking like you are prepared in a disaster is like looking like you are rich when walking through a ghetto at night.  The point of camouflage is to blend in with your environment; if you are in the back woods great, if you are on the highway, in hotels, or walking around public roads, blend in with that environment.  Unless someone is looking for you very hard, some dark clothes and laying down motionless will provide you with most of the concealment that you will most likely need.

I own some camo gear and I would use it in the right instances, but for general bug out, I am going to do my best to look like all the sheep that surround me.

Get a reversible rain cover/pack cover. Camoflage on one side, sheepleflage on the other. Once you're clear of the city, flip it over.

I don't know what's best for every AO, but I'm pretty sure that tittyfuckingpink and most of the flourescents are down near the bottom of the list...

:D

I vote OD/Kelly greens, brown, black

EDIT: and camo (all flavors) is always in style around here

PINK

and there's the tin foil hat crew.
so you really feal that a simple and 'camo is a guy thing anyway' back pack is going to some how make you a target....

and what's with all this "bug-out in mass" shit, er paranoia. sorry, but my plan is to NOT be around people in the first place anyways, I think a lot
of you have watched to many bad disaster movies

Mother-fucking-Barney-purple.



Who cares?  If you look like some lunatic carrying a gigantic monkey on your back, who's gonna mess with you.  If you are worried about Delta seeing you in their nods looking for a lone walker, you have other things to worry about.



I would worry more about comfort, capacity, survivablility and shit like that rather than desert or coyote...  Go to the Salvo or whatever and grab a cheapo pack and fill it up.  If you have lots of coin to drop, go to EMS or REI and get a pack.  If you're worried about concealment, get a cover (or sew one up).  



Bottom line, IMHO, a BOB should be what you can comfortably carry for an extended period on your shoulders and hold what you need for a few days or so...  It's not going to be worn running the ridges and exchanging direct fire.  Tacticool is cool, but it has to work.  Base it on your environment.  If you're in NYC, yeah, a messenger bag like a Timbuk2 is great.  If west Texas or Mississippi (I never got to use that state in a sentence...  teehee), maybe a ruck or 3 day pack in green or multi would be better.  



IMO, there is no RIGHT answer to this question.  The point is moot.

Color is the least important consideration in my emergency gear..

the "nerd" in me wants one of these

how about yoda?

I'll take her during my bug out.

Laughing at the camouflage comments , but seriously anyone prepared will stand out to all of the Zombies who are not prepared.

Tin foil?  I'm not the one thinking that your standard SHTF/BO situation is going to require wearing considerable amounts of camo/military gear.  My responses in this forum have always been that BO in SHTF is not going to be TEOTWAWKI.  It is going to most likely be a response to a natural disaster or chemical spill.  Why do you even need camouflage in those situations?  Who will most people be hiding from?

You either glossed over my second sentence or you do not know what a ruck is.  A ruck is short for ruck sack which is a back pack.  Yes, as I said you could probably get away with a camouflage backpack without drawing much attention.  If you read the rest of my comment it stated to not go overboard on the setup so that it looks like you are prepared.

"Bug out in mass" paranoia?  I don't catch many Hollywood disaster movies, but I do read the news, we have only had mass evacuations in New Orleans, Houston, and parts of Florida in the last few years, but I am sure that it would never occur anywhere like that again.  

How you look, what you drive, what you wear, and how you carry yourself all makes a statement to those around you.  In a BO situation, there is most likely not going to be a total breakdown of civility, but there make be pockets where mob mentality arises.  In these situations you don't want to catch anyone's eye.  If police are doing random searches to seize guns (guns have been seized before), do you think having camouflage would increase or decrease the risk of being "randomly" searched?  If a group of a dozen or so hungry people are walking around asking people for food and they approach you, are they likely to believe that all you don't have anything either?  How is a camo color of the bag helping at all in those situations?

We are talking about a BOB here, the chances of ever needing it are slim, but if you should need it, configure it for the most likely scenarios.  For most people here, hunter green or navy blue is a better camouflage over all.  The only reason I see in having a camo BOB is that already own one from duty use/hunting and you want to save money, or that you can get good cheap used ALICE packs.

Where I'm at now (Miami Beach, FL) with those colors nobody would take a second look at you. Now if you were carrying a camo pack with MOLLE Straps all over it you would stand out. I have a Black Camelbak HAWG and a Tan Maxpedition Versipack and they are fine here. So many people around here carry Messenger Packs that the Versipack fits right in. Black Book type Bags are common also so the Black HAWG looks like all of the others. But that's specific to an Urban Environment.

Camouflage means blending in with the background around you. In a dense Urban Environment like this it's impossible to hide so you have to look like everyone else around you then you just disappear in the mass of people. Same as good camo causes you to disappear into the vegetation in the woods.

Hell considering women here wear two piece thong bikinis walking down the street most people are looking at them and not a guy with a backpack.  

Just my two cents: I have a BOB thats black that i carry just for everyday kinds of things (work, downtown, outdoor events). i then have a BOB that is the new "OD TAC" color which is pretty much the same as coyote tan, i keep this one in my home, this one i keep a few more things in, like spare rifle ammo and clothing/ shelter items.

I have 3or4 Sheeple type hiker packs
Also i have 3 Alice packs
also a whole bunch 10 or so different type back packs and bags
holy crap Im a pack    rat  
as a side note all of Hiker packs and rucks were 5 bucks and the back packs were garbage picked.

Just one thing to think about when deciding your color is thinking about the color more for what it offers when you are looking for stuff in your bag.  The lighter colors usualy make it a bit easier to locate stuff in your bag.  The darker the color the harder it is to find stuff when it gets darker outside.  I have every pack color except multi-cam and I find stuff easier in the kakhi ones and the green ones.  When I take my black one to work some of  my sheeple friends say I look like a terrorist coming to drop a bomb off.

Any type of earthy color.... OD green, coyote brown.
Don't be one of those guys running aorund with a camo pack... they may be nice if you live in colorado, but just not practical if you need to make it through a city.

I live in Central NY so  camping gear is common,

I figure I'll pickup something dark brown/green With A Frame.

I read a post recently that said any pack wilthout a frame will give you a
sore back. Since I already have a bad back I'm going to go with a frame.

My thought is to have the stuff I carrry just look like normal camping
gear for the most part.  Less reason to have anyone question it.

+100000000000 %

DO NOT get black

a. it looks mall ninja'ish
b. it shows up in duck and night like a sore thumb (test it out if u dont believe me)
c. Black does not exist in nature.


DO NOT get black or a cammo pattern if u want to appear normal, or blend in.

if you want something that will not get you flagged as a nut or not stand out in the woods go for a solid color like sage, desert sand, coyote, even od

any of those will work.

Again, there were photos on this very forum that demonstrated the effectiveness of black in wooded terrain being better than many other colors/patters.

Black, when used properly, will blend into shadows - there are some shades of coyote that damned near glow like beacons in the woods.

Sheeple, by and large, are oblivious to black (this has been observed by holster makers as well). Go look at your local department store and see what the most common color of backpack is.

Something to think about.....

I try to appear as "normal" as the next guy.

To that end I look for more normal Items that are dual purpose
and easy to explain away if I had some uptight cop, border patrol,
game warden etc. pull me over and who wanted to search my Jeep.

Camping gear fits the bill nicely a few "Mil" type items thrown in
don't really look too out of place, (looks like I hit the Army Navy store).

As a carry bag in an urban setting a laptop bag works
back at your vehicle the camping gear works out.

Nothing looking out of place.

Blankets, Water, Tarp, Para cord, Duck tape, Becker necker,
Camp shovel, Fire starter, Toilet paper, hatchet , hat, work gloves etc.

All looking pretty normal to have with you.

I spent a couple of hours walking around the Mall of Georgia yesterday with my daughter and if you want to blend in you need to carry a red and black or blue and black North Face pack.  I was amazed at how many there were walking around.  

I dont know whats tacticool or what isnt but my bob is coyote brown.  I think it blends well.  greens and browns are the way to go imo.

My BOB is a German surplus mountain ruck in OD. Despite the color, which I happen to like, it doesn't look too horribly tacticool and could actually blend in as a sheeple-pack pretty easily. There is plenty of commercial "yuppie" packs in that color, and the specific pack that I have has been sold by the chock-ful in sporting goods, army-navy, and outdoors stores nationally. In fact, I have even seen hippie types use the same pack on college campuses My pack has the outdoorsy look. Even if I went with my ALICE bag- it is something common enough that it wouldn't be a big deal. How many people have on of those that they bought at an army-navy/outdoors store, garage sale, flea market, got from the older brother, have left over from their time in the service. As long as its not overly tacticool, I doubt it will make you stand out anymore than any of your other BEHAVIORS will.

I stay away from black and camos. Mostly some shade of brown or green. I do have a black BOB and GHB, but those are mainly work related. All depends on where you live and what you do. You want to blend in with the environment whether natural or urban.

If the color of your pack or your britches ruins your BO plan you didn't have a good plan to start with.



 

Welcome to the club my brother.

Admitting there is a problem is the first step...

To the OP: About 1/2 way down page 1 someonetalked about comfort, size and durability...I would go there instead of worrying about color, although I tend to stick to camo, just cause I like it.

YMMV

^ this



The color of dirt is common all over the world.

bULLshit we all know if it aint multicam ,, you'll never survive

+1

No one bats an eye when you walk around in OD or woodland camo around here. It's Wisconsin, not Checkoslovakia

I want/need to get a messenger bag in dark brown or green for me to use as a GHB
I guess I need to start hitting the guns shows up again
I have one I like but I use it while hunting and its camo

Most I have set up so far just use a WW backpack on sale
I have other things to consider for those selection so Flame off OK
If a BIG SHTF happens I would have to say the Backpacks will outlast me.....

Oh and my Black Bags for laptop and reference books the company got me are now a nice shade of Black/dirt so they work ok